Images by Bailey Roberts

Tom Scott is one of the most inventive knitwear designers going. Not content to simply churn out workday pullovers and classic cardigans, this Pennsylvania native has made a name for himself by approaching patterns, yarns and stitches the way a scientist might approach a lab full of raw materials: with curiosity, intelligence and a willingness to experiment—to build things up and break them back down, again and again—until he achieves perfect sartorial alchemy.

Playful and soft-spoken, Tom—who worked at Ralph Lauren before launching his own line in 2001—is also well-known for his New York Fashion Week presentations, which stand out for their sly wit and creativity. Whether they feature vintage mannequins spinning records at a decommissioned dry cleaner (Fall 2009), sweaters strung from the ceiling in a gallery tableaux curated by artist Ab Rogers (Fall 2008), models in various states of disarray at the Chelsea Hotel, with Jack Daniels bottles and “Dear John” letters at their elbows (Spring 2010), or a co-ed gym class held at a high school in the West Village (Spring 2011), Tom’s Fashion Week outings—mounted with the help of his longtime stylist/creative director (and Dossier contributor), Haidee Findlay-Levin—are a highlight of every fashion season. So, too, his lookbooks (also done in collaboration with Haidee and photographer Stephen Rose), which always tell a story as unique and evocative as the collections they showcase. And before he begins every collection, Tom spends a month or so putting together a small, beautifully crafted inspiration book full of quirky collages and (often laugh-out-loud funny) text.

In addition to helming his own label, Tom worked on John Malkovich’s Uncle Kimono collection from 2005 to 2006, designed for TSE in 2009 and did several capsule collections for RAOUL in 2010. He was awarded the Ecco Domani Fashion Fund prize in 2007, nominated for a Woolmark Award in 2008 and was chosen for the CFDA Incubator in 2010. Last year, he introduced home goods (think: knit chairs and furry cushions). The designer’s latest project is launching e-com on the Tom Scott website, and he recently debuted his first Resort collection, inspired by the idea of the waning American Dream melded with African prints.

Lauren David Peden: So I know you’re from Pennsylvania, but how did you first discover fashion?

Tom Scott: My family all does textiles. My father was a carpet weaver and my grandmother was a lace maker. So that’s how I was first exposed to textiles. But fashion I didn’t really find until I moved here [New York] because I studied textile design and knits at school but it was more “arty.” And I didn’t actually make clothing in school; I just literally knit swatches of fabric. It was all about technique of stitch and structure.

Lauren: You went to school in Scotland?

Tom: In Scotland and in Philadelphia. I first went to Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and then I went to the Scottish College of Textiles; it’s part of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Lauren: So your family is Scottish?

Tom: Yes, my father’s family is Scottish; my father’s from Glasgow.

Lauren: And your grandmother was a lace maker here or in Scotland?

Tom: First in Scotland and then here. She left school when she was 14 and did this funny course in Scotland—it was called a needle-worker’s training course or something—for two years, and then when she moved to Philadelphia she worked for a company called Quaker Lace for forty years. She made fabric, and she even used to make bobbin lace. Do you know bobbin lace? You twist the bobbins around to create these lace patterns. She was really an amazing woman. I used to love to watch her make things. She had really bad cataracts, too, and she could do it just by memory. I used to spend summers with my Scottish grandparents so I was around her a lot. I really liked to create and [liked] hanging out with her and making things. So that’s how it kind of started, really.

Lauren: And what is it about knits in particular that really speaks to you? I mean, aside from the family stuff.

Tom: I love the sense of immediacy of it; that’s the first thing. Because you can make something quite fast, so I can get an idea if I’m going to like something or not right away. I really understand the stitching—the stitch—so I understand how to make the fabrics, and that’s interesting to me. So that’s number one. And number two is I love the sense of experimentation. I like to play around. When I went to college, you could do knit, print or weave. It was a textile design degree, but you had to choose one of the three to focus on. And the teachers wanted me to do weaving, but it just took too long because you had to wind the warp and thread the loom and everything, and it was, like, two weeks before you could start making fabric. With a knitting machine you can just sit down and start going.

Lauren: So your impatience contributed?

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Tom: Yeah, I guess I’m a little impatient. But I also just really understood knitting, like I got A’s in all the knitting classes and I remember being, like, “How weird I understand all this knitting stuff?” That’s why I ended up doing it, because I just really grasped the idea of it so I thought it would be fun to experiment with what I could do. That’s really how it began; just experimenting on the machine and playing with stitches. And that’s how I started my line. When I first started, I just did accessories. It was all about developing stitch and shape on the machine; it wasn’t about clothing as much as it is now.

Lauren: So walk me through your career. Did you start the Tom Scott collection before you were at Ralph Lauren?

Tom: When I first graduated from college, for a year I just did freelance textile design and that’s how I got a job at Ralph Lauren. They saw and really liked my work, and they kind of created this position for me. So I worked there for seven years, and I started my line maybe four years into it, around 2001, and left there in 2004. After I left Ralph Lauren, I was doing some consulting jobs for another accessories company, which was more of a mass-market company. I worked for them as a part-time creative director for four years. And then I did TSE for one season. But I also did other projects, like I worked with John Malkovich on his menswear line for two seasons, which was super fun.

Lauren: I bet. He’s a character.

Tom: Yeah, super fun. He’s really into clothes and has a really cool eye. He used to come over to my apartment and sit at my kitchen table with me. He’s cool; he’s almost exactly the same in film [as] in person. So he did this Gustav Klimt collection, and the season before that he just had some wacky ideas. We did this sweater that was red and it was really oversized with pockets, a men’s sweater, and he called it “The Fucking Commie Sweater.” I used to love that I got to take it to the factory and it was like “The Fucking Commie Sweater” and they’re Chinese so….(laughing). I still have a lot of the prototypes of things I made with him. They’re all really quirky, in really weird colors. But it was fun. That’s the first time I ever did menswear.

Lauren: You launched your own menswear two seasons ago, right?

Tom: We’ve been doing it roughly for three seasons, but not a full collection. We just kind of integrate it [with the women’s line]. I wanted to start making things that I would want to wear. We did a sweater for spring that has my initials sewn into it but they’re upside down.

Lauren: Like your logo?

Tom: Yeah. It’s funny—it’s like a letterman’s sweater. I always like a little sense of humor. I think you should be able to laugh at clothes, right?

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely!

Tom: So that’s kind of how I started. The first season I did this little rinky-dink lookbook and we shot it on my friend’s girlfriend, who was a singer, and that’s how we started selling it. Ikram bought it that very first season. I had a meeting with them in a hotel room in the Chambers; they wrote an order right there. I mean people like that I’ve been selling to for ten years, almost since she opened her store. I remember [the buyer] I used to work with at Ikram once called me and was like, “You didn’t do anything for spring?” and I was like “No, no, I didn’t…” (laughing) I didn’t really know what I was doing. And she was like “Well, make some t-shirts and I’ll buy them!” and so I came up with some t-shirt ideas and sent them to her and she wrote an order for 30 t-shirts. So that’s kind of how it started. It just felt very organic and I had no idea about doing a real collection. And then as I started doing it I started feeling like, ‘Oh, I have an idea for this,’ and that’s how it started going into full clothing. I started making accessories that had sleeves or a weird scarf thing that you could wrap around.

Lauren: So you started at the neck and worked your way down?

Tom: Yeah, kind of. I started playing around. With other stores coming in—like Susan and Barneys—they wanted to have bottoms to wear with some of the tops or wanted to make a full look. So it just naturally evolved and now we do around 70 styles, including accessories.

Lauren: I want to talk about your presentations in a minute but first, would you walk me through your creative process, using some of these books.

Tom: Sure, sure.

Lauren: Now, have you always done these inspiration books?

Tom: Yeah. A big part of the way I studied at school was a lot of paperwork and research—it was all about research. We could do research any way we wanted; it was very freeform. So some people painted. For me, I love collage, and I’m a total collector of paper. I collect napkins from restaurants, sandwich wrappers from Paris… I have this weird attachment to papers and books.

Lauren: And what is all this? What is all this text?

Tom: [Opens a book] So this collection was for Spring ‘07. It was inspired by [Michelangelo] Antonioni’s Red Desert and the idea of controlled chaos. You know Monica Vitti in that film, she kind of goes crazy halfway through the film; she kind of loses her mind. But there’s this sense of control and she always looks really amazing… So it’s kind of that sense of what’s on the outside versus what’s on the inside. I’m always interested in that idea. I think it relates a lot to clothing and [what you’re presenting] outside and how you really are on the inside—that kind of duality. This is Bruce Nauman, who does all those amazing video pieces. I always liked his spirit of individuality. This text is from this really funny etiquette book that I bought at a flea market and it’s about what women should wear. It says: “Colors that may or may not be worn by brunette or gray hair” and it’s a chart, so it kind of charts your hair color (laughing). And then [there’s] this whole sense of layering. I kind of went through a few seasons of this idea of underpinnings and underwear, but I love this whole sense of layering so I played around with that. The format of the books has changed quite a lot since I started making them. They’ve got a lot cleaner, and recently it’s more just image-based. I think I just got tired of making collages every season. It’s too much the same thing. Often I like to play with text too, like upside down. My logo is upside down. I like a lot of times the way text looks upside down more than straight.

Lauren: Why is your logo upside down?

Tom: It kind of happened by accident. I printed something and it came out that way and thought it looked more interesting—my name is so simple. But it’s also nice because a lot of my clothes you can wear more than one way, so it sort of refers to that as well.

Lauren: So what is your creative process like?

Tom: It really starts with the idea and then the fabric. Usually I just start working through concepts in my mind. It’s never just one thing; it’s usually a whole collection of ideas I’m thinking about that moment. I make the book first. Although now that I have this bigger studio and a showroom [at the CFDA Incubator], I set up this blackboard and I’ve been doing a huge collage on the wall of all those ideas. It’s a different way to work than I’ve done before. So I usually start that way—with this collection of ideas and images and concepts that I work it out in the book or [blackboard] or in whatever format I’m using—and then I’ll start pulling a palette and materials from there.

Lauren: So what are these other books?

Tom: This book was the hair book, the hair culture book. So this, we even used hair ties to tie it.

Lauren: I love it! And this is the presentation [Fall 2010] that was shown at Beauty Bar?

Tom: Exactly, yeah in the beauty parlor. So this one’s really cool. I love the beginning of it, with that weird hairpiece. I actually have this weird fascination with hair and wigs. I don’t know why but I always have. So this was a book I found on eBay. It’s a book from the 1920s about how to take care of your hair called Hair Culture.

Lauren: And where did you find the other images?

Tom: Books… I also love to look on Flickr because you often find these very quirky, cool things; all different sort of images. This collection was really an experiment in texture and stitch. I used to work predominantly with shape more in jersey or simple fabrics, but now I’ve become more interested in stitch. You know, I like to challenge myself every season or to make the collection a little different.

Lauren: What have you done that you’ve been surprised at how well it did? Was there any one piece that you were like “What the what?”

Tom: Recently it’s, you know…how basic people want things. In this collection [Fall 2011], we did bright basics like this hot pink, very simple boxy sweater and little cardigans. People really like basics. You know, they like the concept of a collection but when it actually comes down to ordering, we find that a lot of people really like that basic piece; it’s very American. I’m learning. Every season from now on, we’re going to have ten very simple sweaters that still have my little detailing to them but that are quite simple and basic—and accessories, too.

Lauren: That’s smart. It’s what people wear every day.

Tom: I started my collection as accessories so it’s funny how big a part accessories are, especially for the fall collection—like the gloves. And this season, we’re working with Saks.com so the accessories buyer came and did a whole separate buy and it’s good for us. It’s something that I think we can really grow. I want to do more accessories because every store orders accessories from us, you’ll know they’ll add on. So it’s a big part of the order.

Lauren: And what’s the fall collection about?

Tom: For spring, I had been interested in this whole idea of Americana so that collection was an experiment in that. It’s all kind of tongue-in-cheek, but taking elements of very classic utility clothes and somehow making them girlier, sort of feminizing them. And fall was the exact opposite. I’ve been feeling a little bit more, I don’t know…bipolar lately, almost like every season I want it to be completely different. So for fall we called it “Dressing for Pleasure” and it was inspired by deviance and living on the fringe.

Lauren: And how did that play out in the collection?

Tom: The collection was a lot more form-fitted. I wanted it to be kind of rich and dark. The main colors were black and navy, all I kept thinking about was black and navy, mixing them together. And then we added a really hot pink—a really bright, shocking pink—which we did really well with. And we did four pieces this season with a Japanese knitting machine company. They are seamless; the garment is knit all at once with a machine. I like to construct the garments in interesting ways. But it’s something that the wearer can really appreciate because when you put it on you don’t feel any seams so it’s nice. And I’m really interested in texture and pattern more and all these different embellishments. Also, for the first time I did prints. Two prints that were both inspired by static on television.

Lauren: I know a lot of your pieces are unisex.

Tom: Yeah I’m very interested in that. I probably told you this before but I love this idea that you and your boyfriend could buy something and share it. I love that; I think it’s very modern. Especially in New York where we don’t have much space so it’s better for you to share your clothes.

Lauren: And I know a lot of your stuff is dual-purpose or triple-purpose. Why is that important?

Tom: I think it’s nice to have options, isn’t it? It’s quite modern to have something that could be more than one thing. It’s playful but practical. You know, I think it’s important and actually I am quite practical, I think, with the way I design. And the way I live is practical, so it obviously has an effect on the way I design.

Lauren: Alright, so tell me how did you meet Haidee? How’d you guys start working together?

Tom: I always really liked her work and she was friends of friends of mine, so I just contacted her and that’s how we began working together five, six years ago. And then we became really good friends; Haidee is one of my dearest friends. Also Steve [Rose], who is a photographer, I’ve been working with him all that time, too.

Lauren: So you do all the presentations and lookbooks together?

Tom: Uh huh yeah, we’re like a little family. We’re kind of telling this story over time, you know? I mean, the aesthetic has changed, which is good—I think that’s healthy— and obviously the photographs and the way we do the books and things have changed a little bit. But yeah, I’m very loyal and I think when you have that kind of chemistry with people, you know, why change it? People are always changing who they’re working with, but I think that just confuses things. It’s kind of nice to tell this continuous story. I want what I do to have a handwriting.

Lauren David Peden is editor of The Fashion Informer and contributing editor at Rue La La. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Surface, Time Out, SHOWstudio, Plastique, Vogue.com UK and many other publications.

Designer Lars Andersson

There’s something mystical about knitwear designer Lars Andersson. Yes, it’s the dark, draped aesthetic of his women’s and menswear but it’s also a sense that the Swedish-born designer, who has called New York home for over a decade, has discovered his true calling: producing hand-loomed and often handmade, yet modern clothing out of his Brooklyn studio. Meanwhile, at his showroom in the Garment District, surrounded by racks of dark wool, cashmere and leather pieces from F/W10, we spoke to the designer about his past, future and surprisingly not-so-dark personality.

Deanne Yee: Who taught you how to knit?

Lars Andersson: My mother taught me how to knit around the age of six.

Deanne: You’ve said that the first piece you ever made was a sweater for your monkey doll that same year. What was your first “human-sized” piece?

Lars: [It was] a huge chunky, itchy sweater for myself when I was 17. I think it weighed five pounds.

Deanne: And I know you studied for some time at FIT before leaving to work on other projects…

Lars: I left FIT before finishing my degree, and for some time I worked on fetish-inspired fashion for drag queens on the New York nightlife scene. It was very dramatic and different from my design aesthetic now.

Deanne: I would say your design sense now is almost a 180-degree change from drag queen costumes!

Lars: Yes, well, it took me a while to get to this place. But I grew up knitting and it was a natural progression for me. I worked on bespoke knit pieces for friends and when I decided to launch my own line, I finally stopped worrying about trends and what other designers were doing. I would say my aesthetic now is very minimalist and intuitive.

Deanne: What about the craft inspires you, in comparison to tailoring?

Lars: I love being involved from start to finish. I actually get to make the fabric that I use to form my garments. I also see it as a connection to the past. I obviously respect tailors, but I not only have to imagine a collection, I have to think about how I am going to make the fabrics to make that collection.

Deanne: You mainly work with Japanese and Italian yarns; what are your preferred fibers?

Lars: My absolute favorite is linen. I also love silk and wool. For me, it has to be natural and it has to feel good on the body.

Deanne: Do your designs evolve organically, or do you project the patterns prior to beginning a piece?

Lars: The absolute first step is designing the fabric. Then I do organically form shapes through draping and experimenting. By the time it reaches my showroom, it has been transferred to a pattern for production purposes.

Deanne: Looking at your collections, it seems that many of your pieces could be considered unisex—the capes, scarves and sweaters, for instance. Do you think of your aesthetic as unisex?

Lars: Well I think about half the menswear collection can be worn by women. So, to a certain extent you could say menswear can be worn in a unisex way. But the menswear and womenswear collections each have their own distinct identity.

Deanne: Do you work from inspirations for your collections?

Lars: It always starts with a mood for me. For the S/S10 collection, I was inspired by a mix of Vikings (you can see this in the detail of the raw seaming of some pieces), a very natural palette and feel, but at the same time, the collection was urban and sophisticated. For F/W10, I was drawn to tribal wear, such as the those worn by African tribes, and then the mystical mood of Odd Nerdrum, a painter who uses traditional, old world techniques. I was obsessed with hats from Nerdrum paintings. That translated into some pieces in the men’s collection. I’m also very inspired by music.

Deanne: Your lookbooks, the recent video you did for your F/W10 collection (below) and designs all have dark undertones, and your bio describes you as a “dark urban hippie”. Tell us more about the “hippie” aspect of your personality. You’re a vegetarian, yes?

Lars’ F/W10 collection video

Lars: No, I am not a vegetarian, ha! Don’t make fun of me, but that “hippie” trait comes out in believing that everyone should have a happy, loving, optimistic outlook on life. The aesthetic of the clothing is affected by this “hippiness” in the sense that it is completely handcrafted. The collections are free in spirit. The idea is to be unrestrained, and to support the notion of individuality.

Deanne: Describe the darker aspects of your personality?

Lars: I suppose, like everyone else, that I am very self-critical. I also struggle with self-esteem issues, probably like most of the world does. I have an appreciation for “dark” cultural movements in art and music. I also love the aesthetics associated with the early ’80s Goth movement—and bands like Bauhaus.

Deanne: What types of music that inspire you?

Lars: Well there are so many kinds, but offhand, at the moment: Fleetwood Mac, trance music and music from the gay rock-and-roll scene in Europe.

Deanne: You have also said that you are influenced by New York’s downtown, underground culture. What are some of the places/things within this culture that inspire you?

Lars: I became very involved in the gay rock-and-roll movement that was happening in New York when I first moved here. I was entranced with the dark, glam-rock appeal of those seedy NY clubs. We didn’t have anything like that in Sweden. Before I knew it, I was go-go dancing at clubs like SqueezeBox. It was decadent, all very dramatic….and glamorous.

Deanne: How does the creative environment in New York compare to that of Sweden?

Lars: I mean, I haven’t lived in Sweden for 15 years, so it really wasn’t that cool when I left. Unfortunately, I haven’t been there to experience the cultural renaissance that the country has gone through. From fashion to music to art, Sweden is a much different place now. I love New York City though! I thrive off of the city’s energy, and it is definitely a place that is undoubtedly inspiring. It is also a city that you can find at least one person to be interested in whatever you are doing…no matter what it is.

Deanne: So tell us a bit about what you are working on now.

Lars: Well, we are working on production for spring. And after that, I’m working on the next spring collection. For the menswear, we’re making a limited-edition collection of lace and cashmere underwear inspired by a gay Arab in Paris. And the next spring collection of womenswear will be lighter, more romantic in feeling. The inspirations include Stevie Nicks and gypsies, so there will be lots of lace and linens. I’m heading to a friend’s country house in upstate New York for the summer, and I’m glad about that. The forest is a mystical place for me. Marianne Frederiksson was a Swedish author who wrote mystical stories about the forest. I’m inspired by her stories.

Lars Andersson F/W10. www.larsandersson.net.

Clyde designer Dani Griffiths

Clyde, an emerging knitwear label from Brooklyn-based designer Dani Griffiths, may be a new name on the fashion radar, but Griffiths, a Vancouver native, has been quietly perfecting her technique on classically beautiful, chunky, hand-crocheted pieces for the line over the past seven years. “I’ve been crocheting and selling my things under the name since I was 15,” she says. “Crochet is really something that’s portable, so I can always work on my designs, no matter where I am.”

One of the signature pieces from Clyde is a hood that has multiple styling and functionality possibilities. Worn one way, the hood converts into a scarf and folded another way, becomes a hat. The design is the result of a two-and-a-half year journey, which began when one of Griffiths’ friends asked her to create a custom piece. “The first one I made was very small and clung to the head, so it wasn’t great, but that was the beginning,” she explains, holding up the final product, a soft, free-form hood made from merino wool. “I feel it’s reached its final development. And while it looks very simple, it’s something that has emerged through trial and error.”

Griffiths, who has been working in the fashion industry for the past six years, juggling stints in retail for stores such as Assembly New York and as a model, believes in design with a sense of humor. “I don’t think that people in fashion should take themselves so seriously,” she says. “Designers who respect fashion but don’t take themselves so seriously are always the ones who come out on top.” This approach is reiterated on Clyde’s new website, where charming, cheeky videos by Drew Heffron show the designer’s creations in action.

Oversized dummy-string mittens, designed to be worn with the string looped through coat sleeves so that the mittens stay with the wearer, another signature look from the Clyde collection, are a perfect example of Griffiths’ design philosophy. “They’re very much about a wearer remaining in touch with their youth because dummy-string mittens are something that toddlers wear,” she says with a laugh.

For now, Griffiths makes all pieces for Clyde herself, and while she admits that she is experimenting with outside production on a collaboration she is doing with Assembly New York for their Fall collection, she will likely keep the label’s growth at a slow and steady pace, which seems fitting given the meaning behind the label’s name: “It means warm and home in Welsh. My lineage is Welsh, English and Irish, and the name has really stood the test of time. Then I found out that it was my Dad’s nickname in high school, which is really sweet, too.”

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Current looks from Clyde

The hood